We Are All Refugees
Virtually all of us have ties to people who have sought refuge in the United States over time — our ancestors, families, friends. There’s a simple reason for this.
The persecuted, the maligned and the forgotten have always found safety, peace and promise here. They have been welcomed and assimilated by those who came before them.
The International Rescue Committee knows this well. Since our founding in 1933, inspired by a refugee named Albert Einstein, we have been at the forefront of humanitarian action: for Europeans in the ’40s, Hungarians in the ’50s, Cubans in the ’60s, Vietnamese in the ’70s, Afghans in the ’80s, Rwandans in the ’90s and Sudanese in the ’00s. Today, we are providing refugees with shelter, health care, water, sanitation and education in 40 countries and resettlement in 25 U.S. cities. With help, we can do even more.
We call on the Administration to fulfill America’s historic leadership role by increasing critical humanitarian relief efforts, like ours, to ease the desperate plight of refugees in countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Greece and to resettle our fair share of the more than 4 million Syrian refugees.
We are all refugees in America. We have found our safe haven. It’s time to offer a safe haven and a new start to Syrian families and other refugees fleeing war and persecution at home. Here’s how you can help:
Sign the petition
Stand with us to make Syrian refugees welcome in the U.S. Call on your elected officials to act.
Keep the conversation alive
Join @theIRC on Twitter and the International Rescue Committee on Facebook and help us spread the word by tagging #WeAreAllRefugees.
Support our work
Donate now. Help the IRC aid desperate refugees fleeing Syria and other countries in crisis.
Faces of Syria
The world is witnessing its most catastrophic refugee crisis in almost 25 years. The number of Syrians who have fled to neighboring countries to escape violence has surpassed four million. With no end in sight to Syria’s brutal civil war, now in its fifth year, the numbers are expected to rise.
Lebanon
As many as 1.2 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon, a country 900 times smaller than the U.S. There are no formal camps in the country, so refugees live in apartments, unsafe shelters and tents.
Iraq
Northern Iraq has also struggled to cope with the influx of nearly 250,000 Syrian refugees. The Domiz refugee camp in Duhok has become a sprawling city for 40,000 Syrians, many who have been living there for almost three years.
Jordan
More than 80 percent of the 630,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan live outside of formal refugee camps, making it difficult for them to access health care and other basic services.
Turkey
Turkey now hosts the world’s largest number of Syrian refugees with some 1.9 million people sheltering in urban cities and official camps.
Nearly 60 million people have been forced to flee their homes by war, conflict and persecution — more lives uprooted than at any time since World War II. Produced by the International Rescue Committee, “Uprooted” keeps the spotlight on the individual human beings behind the tragic numbers in this global refugee crisis.
